


Bloodborne

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark, Explicit Sexual Content, Incest, M/M, Missions Gone Wrong, Sex Pollen, Uncle/Nephew Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 06:42:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14514657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Luke was meant to make Ben better. All things considered (including a truly disastrous training mission), he really hasn't.





	Bloodborne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cerberusia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/gifts).



There's something wrong with Ben. 

Luke has always known that, of course. He saw it in him when he was young and so did Leia, and he knows that's why she sent her only son to him in the first place. He was meant to help. He was meant to make him better. He hasn't.

"I thought you wanted this," Ben says, frowning, on his knees on the floor, and Luke isn't sure whether he should laugh or cry at the idea that he _wants_ this. He's sitting on the edge of a hard-backed chair turned away from his desk with his fingers twisted tight into Ben's hair. He's sitting with his knees spread wide and Ben's kneeling there between them, looking up at him in the not-quite-dark. They're both still clothed, but that doesn't change how it feels. It feels intimate, in a way it never should.

"Should I stop?" Ben asks. His face is all shifting blue light and dark shadows. The generator's out again - they'll fix it in the morning or they'll go out to salvage another, but for now the temple can do without. For now, Ben's lightsaber is hooked to the ceiling-mounted light fixture in the middle of Luke's room, hanging there, ridiculous and dangerous. It's swinging slightly, in the cold breeze through the open window that's already scattered Luke's papers across the floor. Luke didn't stop him doing it. 

"Should I stop?" Ben asks. 

Luke knows the answer to that question is they should never have started. 

\---

What gets him is it wasn't even a real mission. 

The thing that's behind this is a training mission. Luke had planned it for the two of them, to get away from the temple and see whether a few days elsewhere would help Ben's general demeanor, so they'd left together and set out for a far-flung system on the edge of wild space. There was another temple there, an old one that Luke had visited once; it was in the middle of a dense, hot jungle inaccessible from the air, so they hiked in, packs on their backs, walking sticks in hand, sweating into their robes. 

The door was Force-locked, just the way Luke had left it, so he showed Ben how to deal with that and they spent the night on too-thin bed rolls rolled out on the dusty temple floor; Luke lay there listening to the sound of Ben's breath and the wildlife in the jungle outside the temple doors until he finally fell asleep, remembering the last time he'd been there. In the morning, they ate a light breakfast sitting there on their bed rolls, and then they climbed the winding stair up to the temple's small, flat roof that stretched up above the treetops. They sat down to meditate, between the stone spires that made landing a ship on it impossible. 

It had never been easy for Ben to meditate, Luke knew - there was a certain level of self-reflection required that he seemed uncomfortable with, and Luke couldn't say he didn't understand because he'd disliked it himself for the first few years. Ben seemed uneasy there, sitting cross-legged under the light canopy Luke had known to bring with him to shade them from the too-bright sun, mostly because he'd ended up so sunburned on his last visit that it had hurt to talk for nearly a week. Luke tried to help him - he tried to guide him, tried kneeling behind him with his palms resting at his back, tried to massage the tension out of his shoulders, but contact just seemed to make Ben more tense than he'd started, not less. Luke guesses now he understands why that was.

In the end, they gave up and explored the temple together, down into the lower levels where the air felt old and stale and they lit their way through the dark with their lightsabers. There were hidden doorways to discover, and long drops and high climbs that tested their strength both bodily and in the Force - Ben seemed to prefer that to the meditation, but then he'd always preferred action to any kind of introspection. He'd excelled physically, both with a lightsaber in his hand and with the Force, and Luke had to admit that he'd encouraged that perhaps more than he should have because of the way that Ben engaged. He'd spent so much time with him, more than he had with any of his other students, and he'd justified that to himself by saying, well, Ben was the one that he worried about. Because he did worry, and sometimes it was simpler to take the path of least resistance - Ben needed to acknowledge the darkness inside him in order to move forward, but Luke was concerned where that might lead. 

They spent a second night on the temple floor and a second morning in attempted meditation that passed just as poorly as the previous morning had. Ben's heart just wasn't in it, not even when a cool breeze blew in across their sticky skin and took the edge off the oppressive heat. Luke took the opportunity to take off his cloak and his belt and his tunic, pull off his boots and strip down to his undershirt with the wide legs of his usually boot-scrunched pants hanging loose around his calves. Ben watched him from where he was sitting under the fluttering sunshade and then he stood and he did the same till he was standing there barefoot, his undershirt untucked and hanging open over his chest. Luke drew his lightsaber and settled into his opening stance. Ben did the same. _That_ was what it took to make Ben engage.

"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to meditate?" Luke asked, almost teasing him, because he knew the answer before he even asked the question. 

"We can meditate later," Ben replied, with a spark of something in him as he moved that something in Luke answered. 

They fought. Luke had always tried not to enjoy fighting, had tried to see it as just a means to an end or another form of meditation, but where fighting with Ben was concerned that end was always _fun_. He'd enjoyed watching his skills improve over the years, from starting out with wooden swords to his first lightsaber, perfecting his form, sparring, training duels... Ben was easily the best student Luke had with a lightsaber in his hand, though sometimes he let his enthusiasm run away with him. Honestly, every now and then, so did Luke. They had that much in common.

Their blades clashed. They swung around the tower's tall spires, perilously close to the edge and a fall that even their use of the Force wouldn't be able to cushion. Ben sliced off a chunk of stone that they watched plummet into the jungle down below and Luke raised his brows at him before they continued; it was Luke that set fire to the canopy with an accidental brush of his saber and Ben laughed and came at him again. Luke was already breathing hard. Ben's hair was sticking to his flushed skin. The stone roof was warm under Luke's bare feet as he stepped forward, and he met Ben's attack with his own sword held high. 

Ben had never won a duel against him and Luke knows neither of them really expected him to then - he didn't, because Luke twisted and flicked and disarmed him soundly, Ben's blue blade tossed up into the air in a flash. Luke caught it with the Force, and snapped it into his hand as Ben fell to his knees, out of breath. There was a smile on his face, but something darker under it. There was always something darker, hidden just underneath. 

"Best two out of three?" Ben asked, pulling himself back up to his feet, and Luke handed him back his lightsaber with a shake of his head. 

"We should get back to the ship," he said. 

"We're going home?" Ben asked, frowning. "We just got here." 

"We have a few stops to make on the way." 

So they pulled on their clothes and their boots and and they went back down the tower stairs, they pulled their things together and they left the temple more or less the way they'd found it, to trek back through the jungle to the ship. Luke couldn't say that the trip had felt in any way successful but he thought maybe a few days hopping between planets would help, different terrains and different climates, maybe another temple or two, and something might click. Ben grumbled as they walked, cloaks catching on trees and on the undergrowth though it was a slightly less tough route than they'd taken on the way there - the problem was, not too far from the ship, Luke remembered exactly why they hadn't taken it before: there were pods hanging from the trees, big and yellow and seemingly innocuous, but he knew exactly what was lurking there inside them. 

"Don't touch the pods," Luke told Ben, glancing back over his shoulder. "Don't even brush up against them."

"Or else...?"

"Or else you'll be in excruciating pain for several days and I won't be able to help." Luke paused and turned and raised his brows. "Don't think I'm exaggerating, Ben. I'm not."

Ben seemed to take that in and they moved on between the heavily laden trees, except a few minutes later Luke heard Ben curse as he tripped, and he heard the telltale _foom!_ of the kalla pods erupting. He turned and there Ben was, covered from head to toe in bright purple pollen - it was in his hair and clinging to his eyelashes, all over his robes, stuck to every bit of exposed skin. It was _everywhere_.

"Take your clothes off," Luke told him. "Now. _Quickly_." So Ben did, quickly, but Luke knew it was already too late - the pollen was so fine and so reactive that it had to have already bonded with him, but he guessed maybe the effect could be reduced if he didn't touch much more of it. He watched Ben try to knock the pollen out of his hair and rub it off his face until it _looked_ like it was gone, but he was wincing already by the time he'd stripped off his cloak and robe. Luke knew what that was like. He knew how quickly it acted, and exactly how it felt. 

"All of it," Luke told him, when Ben looked at him expectantly, so Ben took it all off, stripped right down to his skin. Luke took off his cloak and he pulled off his tunic and he tossed that to Ben for him to wipe himself down with, then he tossed him his cloak for him to cover up against the branches jutting out into their path. 

"We should get back to the ship," Luke told him then. "Quickly. It's going to hurt." 

They made it, but only just - Luke couldn't touch him because he knew what would happen and Ben struggled for the last hundred paces or so, then he fell to his knees as the boarding ramp came down. Luke hated that he couldn't help as he watched him crawl up the ramp into the ship's small cargo bay, and all he could really do was roll out one of their bed rolls for Ben to slump down onto then grab the painkillers from the med kit that he knew wouldn't even take the edge off. Ben clenched his jaw and tried not to groan. And the problem was, he couldn't risk taking him off the planet, not till it had passed and the pollen on him was inert, so he drew himself a mental line in the cargo bay that he knew Ben hadn't passed, and he sat there cross-legged on the deck plates by it. All he could do was sit with him, as it hurt Ben more and more, as his face twisted up with it. 

"How did you know about this?" Ben asked, in one of his more lucid moments; the painkillers could give him that much a couple of times a day, at least. When Ben had the wherewithal to inject himself, that was - Luke couldn't go any closer.

"Let's just say purple's not my color," Luke replied, with a wry twist to his mouth. "I was here maybe fifteen, twenty years ago. It'll last six or seven days." He sighed. He rubbed his palms against his thighs. "It'll get worse before it gets better."

Ben nodded tightly. By the end of the day, it had gotten worse. 

Luke spent the night there, listening to Ben groan once the time came when trying not to groan just outright failed. He could barely keep still and all Luke could do was watch him, because he knew what would happen if he tried to do anything else, though every now and then Ben just looked at him, sick and sweating and shaking. 

"There's _nothing_ else you can do?" Ben asked, on the second day. He sounded desperate. He sounded agonized. Luke could barely look at him; he shook his head no. 

"There's _nothing_?" Ben asked, on the third day. 

Again, Luke winced, and he told him no. 

"I don't know how much more I can take," Ben told him, on the fourth day. "There's got to be something. _Please._ "

Luke grimaced, sitting there with his head in his hands. "You don't want me to do the only thing left I can do," he said. 

Ben squeezed his eyes shut. "What is it?"

"The pollen bonded with you," Luke said. "When it bonds with two or more people, it stops hurting."

"So why aren't we doing that?"

"The effect doesn't go away. It just changes."

"Well, it can't be any worse than this."

"If it bonds with both of us, there'll be consequences." 

"What consequences?"

Luke sighed. "Arousal," he said, and he grimaced. "Sexual desire. Compulsion."

"You're saying I'll want to have sex with you?"

"I'm saying you'll be _compelled_ to have sex with me."

"And the other way around?"

"I might be able to stop myself, but I can't make any guarantees." Luke wrung his hands in his lap. "You see why I didn't list this as an option?"

Ben laughed, almost despairingly, absolutely desperately, as he jabbed his nails into his palms again. They were already marked with livid red arcs. Luke could tell the pain was setting back in. It wrenched at him.

"Do it," Ben said, looking at him unsteadily. 

"You know what you're asking for."

"I can live with it." He closed his eyes again. He screwed them shut and swallowed hard. "It hurts. Just make it stop. _Please_. Just make it stop." 

Luke knew he shouldn't. He knew the pain was making Ben say things he didn't mean and he'd regret it later, and he'd probably blame him, or he'd blame himself, or both. But he watched him, lying there on the bed roll on the cargo bay floor, groaning, twisting and turning, pressing his heels to the deck plates, clenching his jaw so tight his neck stood out in cords, and he knew he couldn't say no if there was anything that he could do, not when Ben was asking him to do it. So he took off his belt and his undershirt and he stripped his chest bare, then he pulled himself up and he stepped past that invisible line of no return. 

He went down on his knees next to Ben and he pulled back the cloak he'd covered him with and he tossed it aside. Ben was naked underneath it, his clothes out there in the jungle where they'd need to stay till the pollen's potency ran out, and Luke put his hands on him. He stretched out on his side on the floor next to him and he gathered him up, pressing him to him chest to chest. He ran his flesh-and-blood hand up over Ben's back, through his hair, pressed one cheek to one of Ben's and then the other, ran his thumb over one eyelid then the other. He touched all of the places he knew the pollen had been, tried to share it as much as he could, and the effect was almost immediate; Ben stopped shaking; Ben's jaw unclenched. 

"It's stopped," Ben said, and the relief was right there in his tone, but Luke could already feel the _other_ effect taking hold of him. He scrambled away. He pulled himself up and he fled into the cockpit and he locked the door behind him before Ben could even move. He sat down in the pilot's seat and he closed his eyes and he tried to clear his mind and he'd known it was going to be difficult, and it was - he could hear Ben knock on the door, then beat on the door, then curse and stalk away, and he understood because he felt it, too. It was clear and direct and after a few minutes it was utterly consuming, even when he gripped the arms of the seat and he tried to meditate. All he could think about was how warm Ben's skin was, the muscles in his arms and his chest, the curve of his mouth, and why shouldn't he think about him? Ben was a grown man and perfectly capable of making his own decisions, except he was also Luke's sister's son and he couldn't, he _couldn't_. Except he wanted to. He most desperately wanted to.

He could hear when Ben slumped down against the other side of the door. He could hear it as Ben groaned and he knew what he was doing - it was obvious, so obvious he could almost see it, Ben's knees pulled up and spread out wide, his hand around himself. He could almost see Ben's closed eyes and his parted lips and his flushed face and his flushed cock and how his muscles tensed because what he was doing was a poor substitute for what he really wanted, and Luke knew what he wanted not just because he wanted it himself but because Ben couldn't have been clearer about it if he'd shouted it out loud. It was right there in the Force, and Luke bit down at the leather glove over his metal hand to center himself. It didn't work. He wasn't centered. He was tilted so far toward Ben that he couldn't pull back.

He heard Ben finish. He heard him move. It was more than another torturous hour before Ben finally managed to rewire the damn door to make it slide open for him and Luke was frankly surprised he'd managed to sit still and not just open it up himself. When it hissed open, Luke stood, still stripped to the waist. When Ben came inside, he was still naked. Luke couldn't help himself; he slid his metal hand into Ben's long hair and he pulled him down into a rough, hard kiss. Ben didn't object; he pushed Luke back against the cockpit bulkhead and he bit down at his neck. Luke groaned, his fingers raking down Ben's back to the curve of his backside, his head against the bulkhead. He could feel Ben's cock stiffening against his belly so he shoved his gloved metal hand in between them both and wrapped it around him with a squeeze at the head. 

Ben's breath caught in his throat and he stepped back, but he pulled Luke with him. He pulled Luke straight back out of the cockpit with his hand around Luke's metal wrist and he pushed him down on the bed roll in the cargo bay, flat on his back, back where they'd started. It was a terrible idea and Luke knew it, he knew he should have pushed him back and fled again and done a better job with the cockpit door this time, but he watched Ben straddle his thighs instead. He ran his hands up to Ben's bare hips instead. Ben leaned down, one hand either side of Luke's shoulders, and Luke could feel his own cock stiffening as Ben sucked at the place he'd just bitten him, probably hard enough to leave a mark with one thing or the other, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He ran his hands down Ben's back. He ran his flesh-and-blood fingers over the crack of his ass and made him shiver and Ben pulled up to look at him, planting his hands on Luke's chest. 

"You're going to fuck me," Ben said, hotly, his voice strained, his cheeks flushed, and Luke took an unsteady breath as he squeezed tight at Ben's hips, like that was going to make the situation any less ridiculous or any easier to process. But then Ben moved. He stretched out on his back and he turned his head to look pointedly at Luke and all Luke could do was move over him, shove down his pants to his knees and settle there between his thighs, propped up on his hands. All he could do was use the Force to pull the med kit to him across the room and find a lotion he thought might work, and Ben pulled up his knees as Luke slicked himself. He caught one of Ben's calves over his shoulder and he leaned in, he pressed the blunt head of his thick cock to the rim of Ben's hole, and he knew how wrong it was, he did, _really_ he did, but that seemed to be of dim and distant secondary importance to the imperative that he fuck him. 

He did exactly that. He pushed forward with his hips, and Ben groaned, and Luke groaned, and he felt him stretch tight around the length of him as he pushed inside. Ben wrapped his other leg high over Luke's back and he stretched his arms out wide, his hands pressed to the metal floor, and he pulled Luke inside him deeper. And it had been so long for Luke, years, more than a decade, maybe two, and it was _Ben_ , his nephew, _Leia's_ son, who pulled him down at an awkward angle to crush their mouths together briefly, hotly. He tasted of kalla pollen, sweet and dark and fucking intoxicating. He couldn't pull away.

Ben pushed him back. Luke pushed up and rocked back on his heels, pulling out abruptly, and Ben moved, turned, went down on his hands and knees and Luke moved closer, thumbed his cock to Ben's hole and pushed back in with one long, deep thrust. Ben pushed back against him, his breath harsh, the sound of skin on skin, and Luke squeezed too hard at Ben's hip with his metal hand, hard enough that it might leave a bruise but all it did was make Ben moan and push back harder as he stroked himself in short, sharp jerks. 

Ben came over the deck plates, pulling so tight around the length of Luke's cock that it almost hurt. Maybe forty seconds later, Luke came, too, still pushed up deep inside him. He pulled out, almost panting. Ben sank down to the floor, his head pillowed on his arms, to catch his breath.

It wasn't the most successful training mission Luke had ever had, to say the least. And it still wasn't over, even then.

\---

"Should I stop?" Ben asks, and Luke knows the answer should be yes. 

It's been four months since the kalla pod incident, since they screwed against every flat surface on the ship, for _three days_ , until they could barely stand and the effects of the pollen finally wore off. It's been four months since Luke piloted them back to the temple, feeling sick on top of the utter exhaustion. Ben had bruises on his skin shaped like Luke's hands; they were under his clothes but Luke knew they were there. Luke had a mark at his throat from Ben's teeth and Ben's mouth; he couldn't stop touching it, even over the dressing Ben applied there so assiduously. He looked at it in the mirror when they got back to the temple, pressing his fingers to it till it hurt. He came like that, jerking himself with his metal hand till he came with something like a sob.

It's been four months and Luke can't stop thinking about it. He knows he's looked at him sometimes and caught Ben looking back, and it's occurred to him that maybe it was always that way for Ben, or maybe it never was. Maybe Ben already wanted it or maybe he never did. It can't be both things but he's not sure which to believe.

"Would you like me if you didn't have to?" Ben asked him once, years ago, while they were out in the training yard with their lightsabers drawn. 

Luke remembers smiling. He remembers telling him, "I don't _have_ to like you." He remembers his smile beginning to fade after that and he remembers saying, "You're my nephew. I have to _love_ you." 

He still loves him, and that's fine, that's right, but he knows that he still wants him, too. 

"Should I stop?" Ben asks, and Luke knows the answer should be yes. It should be _yes_ , it should be _right now_ , because he's Ben's uncle and he's his teacher and he's more than twice his age, though that last point seems pretty tame compared with the rest. The answer should be yes because while Luke knows he's made mistakes, he knows this shouldn't be one of them.

The answer is they should never have started, but that's not what he says. What he says is, "Get up," so Ben gets up from his knees on the floor. Luke stands, too. Luke takes hold of the front of Ben's shirt and he turns him and he pushes him down onto the chair where he was just sitting himself and he knows he should stop, but he can't. He'd like to think that's the lingering effects of the kalla pod, that maybe the fact they're so close to the same affected the way the pollen works, that it's in their blood because their blood's the same blood. He'd like to think it's endless feedback, Ben to him to Ben to him, and they're just not responsible. But he knows that's not even close to how it works. 

Luke straddles Ben's thighs; he settles himself down; Ben rests his hands lightly at Luke's waist. They're eye to eye and Ben's face is all shadows in the pale blue light but Luke can still see his cheeks are flushed. Luke can still see he wants this. He was meant to make him better, but Luke now knows he's only made him worse.

There's something wrong with Ben. Luke kisses him, his fingers in his hair, and Ben kisses him back like their lives depend on it, his hands framing Luke's hips. Sometimes, Luke thinks he tastes like kalla pollen, sweet and dark and halfway deadly. Sometimes, he almost manages to tell him no. Almost, but then again never.

There's something wrong with Ben, and Luke knows it. He's skirting so close to the dark side that all it would take is a nudge.

"I love you," Ben says, like a knife in Luke's gut, and Luke stands and they go to the bed, undressing in the half-dark along the way. The bruises on Ben's skin right now are a lot more recent than four months, and Luke fits his hands into them perfectly. This isn't the first night Ben's come to his room; it's not even close; it's not close to the end.

There's something wrong with Ben. But there's something wrong with Luke, too.

There's nothing he can do to stop it. And, right now, stopping is the last thing he wants.


End file.
